


Hardcore Polytechnic

by SapphoIsBurning



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 60's girl groups, Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - College/University, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Karaoke, M/M, Meet-Cute, Musicians, Polish Stiles Stilinski, Professors, Slow Build, bird rhetorics, database errors, polish orthography
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4204464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Stiles Stilinski is the Beacon Institute of Technology's newest hire. Derek Hale is its biggest mystery (and also one of its best facilities maintenance employees).  Can this brand-new college professor plumb the depths of his mysteriously hot next-door-neighbor, or will he just fall flat on his face? Everyone has an important lesson to learn about how you can't hurry love. Seriously, you just have to wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Week One; Week Two

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP and the rating and tags will be updated as the work progresses.
> 
> I read a lot of Sterek but this is my first contribution to the genre: I'm motivated to give back to a fandom that's given me a lot through some difficult times.

Stiles cleared his throat.  “WELCOME.  Ahem.  Hello.  Welcome to Introduction to Multimedia Composing, Fall 2014, Beacon Institute of Technology.” He gestured twitchily at the screen to his left.  “If you are here for underwater basket weaving, you are in the wrong room.” His students stared.  

“That’s a joke.  We don’t teach fine arts at this school.”  Another beat passed. “That’s a joke, but also not a joke, because we are HARDCORE POLYTECHNIC up in this joint. Or so I hear. I’m new. Anyway.”

He flicked the edge of the syllabus with his finger.  “Today is syllabus day.  We will go over the syllabus, and introduce ourselves to each other.  Well, not to ourselves, but each other to each other...anyway, there will be introductions.  Introductions will happen.

“I am suspicious of professors who make people work on the first day.  How much can you possibly get done?  Math does that.  I’ve seen math professors hand out their syllabus and launch into a lecture. On math. On a Monday. Why?”  He gestured frantically and ran his hand through his hair.

“So, let’s look at the course objectives…”

\---

Tuesday of his first week, he approached the classroom for his only class of the day with a load of syllabi in his arms.  A cluster of students milled around outside of the room.

“Is it open?” Stiles asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“They’re still in there,” a tall girl volunteered, rolling her eyes.

“Oh.  Well...I guess we’ll wait,” he said.

A shorter girl with powdered eyebrows and an undercut asked the tall girl, “Have you heard anything about this professor? I heard this class sucks.”

The tall girl shook her head. She looked at Stiles, raising her eyebrows. “Do you know her?”

“Uh, I think it’s a guy,” Stiles stammered. “He.  He’s a guy. I...I guess I’ve heard he’s cool.  He gets okay course evaluations, I know that for sure. Um, but he’s new?”

The girls nodded.

Stiles pushed through the crowd to peep in the window of the door.  He could see the professor was still talking. He looked at his cell phone--9:55.  That person was encroaching into his prep time, but he had never figured out how to politely remind people to get out of the goddamn classroom on time. He made eye contact with the person teaching through the door, wiggled his eyebrows up and down, glanced at the clock on the classroom wall, and stepped back.

Two minutes later, students poured out of the room, and he and the student throng poured in.

He walked to the front of the room, shrugged at the two girls he had been talking to, and logged into the teacher’s station. They turned to look at each other with disbelief.

“Does anybody know how to get these smartboards to turn on? I’m new here.”

\---

Wednesday of his first week, Stiles attended a mandatory HR training. He managed to stay awake for a very long PowerPoint presentation, but his mind began to seriously wander during the Q&A. He didn’t really understand the retirement benefits policy, but his plan was to come back for a one-on-one explanation sometime later.

A broad-shouldered blond man raised his hand. “So, the policy on dating students. Can we date students as long as they are not currently our students?”

Stiles’s head popped up and he glared. That was so not okay.

“Yes...Jackson, is it?  Technically yes, as long as they are not in your class.”

Stiles looked down at the man’s nametag.  “Jackson Whittemore, D.B.A., Assistant Professor of Management.”

‘What the hell’s a DBA? That can’t be a real degree. Doctor of Bad A...sses? Dick Bag Asshole?’ he thought to himself. Stiles tried not to make too visibly disgusted of a face, but it was difficult. He made it through the rest of the presentation and then retreated to his office to recuperate, and install Steam. He was the new digital media professor--it was totally justified. Totally, he told himself.

\---

Friday of his first week, he retreated to his office after two back-to-back writing classes. While teaching at a new university was nerve-wracking, the first week was the golden period where he didn’t have anything he had to grade.  Inevitably, he would try to extend that period by procrastinating and by week six, he’d have an absurd backlog of papers. Ah, that delicate combination of ADHD and avoidance as an emotional coping strategy--just as difficult to work through as it had always been.

He took the moment to kick back and hole up in his office for a minute. He had his microwaved macaroni and cheese for lunch; he had his squishy stress ball; he had Pandora. He had a locking door! He had a lot of emails to respond to.

He always imagined Pandora to be like a weird goth girl who kept making him mix tapes--usually good ones but she kept trying to get him to listen to Imagine Dragons and he was like “Nooooo” and there was a lot of rapid thumbs-downing.

Aretha Franklin came up: good. Tori Amos came up: double good.

“You Can’t Hurry Love” came up third and he forgot all about catching up on correspondence.  He was lost in the moment.  He started to sing along with the chorus:

 

_You can't hurry love_

_No, you just have to wait_

_She said love don't come easy_

_It's a game of give and take_

 

_You can't hurry--_

 

“Oh!  Sorry!  Are you...busy?”

Stiles spun around in his chair to face his door, seeing a figure slouching in his doorway. He hadn’t heard the man’s key turn in his lock.

Stiles lept up from his chair, accidentally yanking his headphones out of his computer.  The Supremes blared to life out of his speakers.  He tried to pause the music but only succeeded in flinging his macaroni and cheese onto a pile of brochures about the University Honors Program he forgot to hand out.

“Shit.  Sorry.  Hi?  What’s up?”  Then Stiles noticed the man’s janitorial cart and the fact that he was leaning on a large vacuum.

“Hi, I’m here to vacuum your office? This seems like a bad time. I can come back.”

Stiles stared at the man.  “Someone vacuums my office for me?”

The man furrowed his bushy eyebrows. “Yes. Me. I also take out your trash every day.  You haven’t had much this week…uh, so you must be the new professor.”

“Yes. Stiles Stilinski. Do you want a business card? I have five thousand and I’ve been instructed to try to use them all up before I get a promotion.”

“I don’t have anywhere to put it. But thanks.” He paused. “I’m Derek.” Derek peered past Stiles. “Do you need help cleaning up your desk?”

They both looked at the macaroni.  “Nope, I’m good.”  Stiles scooped up the soiled brochures along with the spilled food and dumped the whole pile into the trash.

“And please, vacuum now. I can get out of here. Do you normally come at 12 on Fridays?”

Derek nodded. “I used to work nights, but I need to take care of my niece now.  I just switched to the day shift…”

Stiles waved his hands.  “No, it’s fine! Stiles loves the library.  Stiles will go bother some librarians about our selection of graphic design albums and journal subscriptions.”  Stiles grabbed his backpack and his headphones and squeezed past Derek through the doorway.

“I’m out! Bye!”

Stiles’s face burned with embarrassment as he walked part of the way to the library, then corrected course. He remembered he had no lunch. The lunch was in the garbage, with the brochures. He headed up to the tiny, shitty cafeteria to console himself with heat-lamp warmed pizza.

\---

Saturday, Stiles lay in bed and contemplated his existence.

He moved from one coast to the other to take this job. He was the only one of his classmates from graduate school to even get a job that year. He should be happy, right?

Then why did he feel a cold, black hole deep in the pit of his stomach?

He wandered out to check the mailbox: two credit card solicitations and a postcard from his dad.  The former sheriff had retired just before Stiles went off to graduate school and was currently doing volunteer conservation work on the Appalachian Trail.

“She said trust in time, no matter how long it takes…” he sang to himself.

“Hi, um, Stiles, right?”

Stiles turned around to see an athletic torso in a sweaty tank top, a pair of dangling earbuds, a handsome pair of green eyes, bushy eyebrows...it was the janitor from yesterday.

“Derek! I promise I do more than sing 60’s girl group music to myself and shuffle papers. So you live around here?”  
  
“Yeah,” he replied, running a hand through his hair. “We live over in #27. Well, me and my niece Lita do for now. Her mom is on externship in Alaska this whole school year. Are you the new person in #25? I remember when those people moved out--they had a huge garage sale. I got a desk.”

He brushed past Stiles to get to the mailbox. Stiles jumped back. “Oh, I’m in your way sorry...yeah, I’m in #25. I didn’t realize we were so close!”

“You’re fine, I can get it…” He swung the door open. The box was empty.  He frowned. “Lita was hoping for a postcard.”

“She can have this one if she wants. My dad says hi. It’s a picture of...trees? In Virginia?”

“Really? Thanks, she can put it on the postcard wall.  We don’t have any from there yet.”

They both turned to walk back to their condos. Stiles fiddled with his junk mail, sneaking glances at Derek.

\---

The second week of classes passed more smoothly than the first. The plagiarism count was still at zero. Nobody had a freak-out about the readings aside from complaining that there are too many of them. No one said a negative word about the gay memoir comic: phew.

Friday afternoon, another younger professor approached him. He thought this person’s name was Erika, but it could have been something else. She taught math. He had to pretend he remembered everyone’s name, but at this point the best he could do was assume every man on campus was named Matt.

As it turned out, it was karaoke night. “We’re going to The Palace around 9 if you want to come,” she said. “Just so you know, someone got stabbed there, so they will frisk you for knives.”

He raised his eyebrows. 

“You’re not one of those concealed carry guys, are you? If you are please don’t even try it. The drinks are really cheap, though!”

He shrugged.  “Why not?”

He met them there. The place had a high ceiling and was dimly lit by strings of chili pepper lights and candelarias. He couldn’t see any obvious bullet holes or blood stains on the floor.  He sat down with the group.

“Stiles! You made it!  You remember Isaac and Matt from civil?” Erika (?) gestured to some skinny guys sitting next to her. Stiles nodded. “This is Matt from CS, Kristin from psychology, Kristen from EE, and Jackson from management.” Ugh, that one he remembered.

They made small talk. They gossipped about their students--apparently the romance of the century was going on in the Civil Engineering department.

When paper slips were passed around for people to sign up to sing, Stiles flipped through the binder to find one of his standards.  This didn’t seem like a good Little Mermaid crowd, so he selected something older.

Conversation died down once people started getting up to sing. Surprisingly, Isaac went first. He sang “Rocket Man,” which is a terrible karaoke trap for most people, Stiles thought to himself. He seemed like he should be shier but with a mic in his hand he seemed transformed. He hit every note with finesse.

After him were a couple of forgettable groups of women singing Big and Rich and Lady Antebellum. One of the Matts sang “Holy Diver.” Then Stiles heard the MC call him: “Next we have...Stiles? Is that a name?”

He approached the mic, removed it from the stand, and cradled it gently. The intro music swelled, and he sang:

 

_Tonight you're mine completely_

_You give your love so sweetly_

_Tonight the light of love is in your eyes_

_But will you love me tomorrow?_

 

He opened his eyes and took a breath after the last line of the first verse and caught the eye of someone at the bar, staring up at the stage with a soft smile. It was Derek--what was he doing here?

 

_Is this a lasting treasure_

_Or just a moment's pleasure?_

_Can I believe the magic of your thighs?_ (Dammit! Stiles cursed himself mentally for singing the joke word and not the nice one.)

_Will you still love me tomorrow?_

 

It seemed to Stiles that the crowd noise was hushed listening to him: usually a good sign. He felt a blush spread over his face as he moved into the bridge.

 

_Tonight with words unspoken_

_You say that I'm the only one_

_But will my heart be broken_

_When the night meets the morning sun?_

 

He rallied for the finish:

 

_I'd like to know that your love_

_Is love I can be sure of_

_So tell me now, and I won't ask again_

_Will you still love me tomorrow?_

_Will you still love me tomorrow?_

 

He stepped down from the small stage grinning out of the side of his mouth while people clapped. For a first effort in this town, it was good--demure, but dramatic coming from a 6-foot-tall millennial. And he totally wasn’t making eyes at his hot neighbor who vacuums his office. Nope, not at all.

Stiles turned back from his table to try to catch Derek’s eye again once the next song had started, but he had already left.

Curious.


	2. Week Three

The following Monday, Stiles arrived in his classroom at the appointed hour and attempted to log into the teacher’s station computer at the front of the room, like usual. He typed in his username, stiles.stilinski, and his password, “frostedflakesareGR8!!!”

He got an error. He thought to himself about making an easier to type password, and tried again.

Instead of taking him to his custom Team Fortress 2 rule 63 wallpaper, he got an error: “Invalid user and/or domain name. The entered user and/or domain name does not exist."

The projector was on, and the students who had trickled in were watching the tableau unfold. “Computer, I assure you I exist, and that's the right username,” he muttered.

“Try calling ITS,” his student Casey suggested from the front row.

“Good thought.” He dialed the number listed on a sticker on the front of the monitor. “Hello? This is Stiles Stilinski from Comm? I’m the new professor? I’ve been deleted from the system not unlike Sandra Bullock in _The Net_ \--yes, it is a great movie--anyway, I need to log in to teach, otherwise my Intro to Multimedia Composing students will have to watch me try to draw the Photoshop interface on the whiteboard and I don’t think anyone really wants to do that.” He heard his students giggle nervously.

Matt from ITS (goddammit everyone is named Matt) asked him to read the error message out loud to him. Stiles did. “Ah, that’s actually very helpful,” Matt said. “Is Stiles a nickname? If you turned in paperwork that was processed recently, the system might have changed your username automatically.”

Stiles clutched his head. “Yes, my legal name is different, but it is also full of Polish diacritical marks. Can you have a Ł in a username?”

Matt was silent for a moment. “On second thought, how about I get you set up as a guest, and we can take some time to figure all this out.”

Stiles made do for the day without being able to log into Blackboard or his shared drive.  It was at least a very good excuse to not grade anything.

His students did try to wheedle his real name out of him. “No, it’s not Adolph. Or Hussein. Stop it! We haven’t even gotten to the Henry Jenkins reading yet!”

Back at his office that afternoon, he waited for a phone call about rectifying the situation. He couldn’t access the files stored on his computer, even though he was logged in as a guest, so he unpacked some boxes of books he hadn’t gotten to yet. He contemplated going home, but it was his scheduled office hours. He’d have to email his students to tell them he was cancelling...but he couldn’t get to his email.

“Do you have any trash today?”

“Wha? Oh, hi.” Derek was standing in his doorway with his cart. “No, none today. Well, not yet. I’m trying not to destroy my computer but if I do...well, it would probably have to go to University Recycling, right?”

“Yeah, I’m not allowed to trash anything with a sticker on it. It’s an inventory thing. Keeps people from stealing things and then claiming they were broken and then thrown away. There are forms.”

“Oh boy, forms!” They both chuckled. “My life revolves around forms right now. I just got done signing everyone’s course override form, which it turns out I was NOT supposed to sign, and now I am signing people’s course withdrawal forms. It seems weird that I have to approve them to drop my class, but whatever.”

Stiles’ phone rang. “Oh, I have to get that--it’s HR and/or ITS calling to re-insert me into the Matrix.” Derek’s eyebrows shot up. “Long story.”

“Talk to you later, Stiles,” Derek said, returning to his cart and rolling it away.

Carol from HR let him know his insurance form had been processed and accidentally deleted the name override command that had been in place. Unfortunately, the Ł (which the new HR lady had meticulously figured out how to type, bless her) caused a critical error in the software and corrupted his entry in the database. She apologized and told him it would be fixed by the next morning.

As soon as he hung up the phone he realized he forgot to ask Derek about karaoke night.

 

\---

 

That night, Stiles treated himself to his classic “I GIVE UP” dinner of Froot Loops and wine and enjoyed a cool breeze blowing in off the courtyard. He gazed into the bowl of milk, stained with the color of the circles, tipped his chair back, and leaned his head against the wall. It had certainly been A Day.

“TWEET tweet, TWEET TWEET tweet.”

Someone was whistling the Elle Driver music from Kill Bill somewhere outside his patio.

He looked out the window. He couldn’t see anyone, but he heard the music coming from somewhere past the other side of the fence dividing his patio from his neighbor. His neighbor Derek. Who didn’t strike Stiles as a big whistler.

He shoveled the last of the cereal into his mouth so it wouldn’t get soggy, then stepped out the door to the patio off the kitchen. Walking off the steps, he rounded the corner and saw a petite, dark-haired girl whistling and shaking a bottle of peanuts.  “C’mere birdie birds,” she said, and then scattered a handful of nuts on the grass.  She resumed whistling.

Stiles watched her for a second before clearing his throat. “Ahem...hi?”

The girl turned to look at him. “Don’t suppose you want a peanut too,” she deadpanned.

“Um, I wouldn’t say no, if there are enough to share.”

“Yeah, the magpies are pretty greedy but they usually stay away until after I’ve gone. I’m trying to teach them to come when I whistle but the only thing I could think of to whistle is ‘Twisted Nerve’. That’s the name of that song, if you didn’t know. Do you live here? Are you our neighbor? If so, I hear your alarm every morning. You hit snooze a lot. I think we share a wall.” She hit him with an intense squint and reached out to him with the can of peanuts.

He put out his hand for a few. She poured some in.

“Yeah, I live here. I’m Stiles. You must be Derek’s niece?”

“Correct. We would have met already but Derek says I’m not allowed to snoop on the neighbors anymore so now I just spy on the wildlife. It’s an acceptable substitute. Barely.”

Stiles chewed thoughtfully on some peanuts. “Well, for what it’s worth you can snoop on me all you want. I don’t get a lot of human conversation outside of work.”

“Tell me upfront: are you going to stranger-danger me, or can I just tell you my name?”

“I’m a mandatory reporter, kid, I’d have to turn myself in. I think you’re safe.”

“Very well. My name is Gabrielita. You may call me Lita. I’m going inside now. Enjoy the peanuts.” She abruptly turned around and walked back into her front door.

“...bye?”

Stiles returned inside to his mug of wine, drew the blinds shut, and sank into his couch to dick around in Minecraft for a while. He idly thought to himself that the NPCs in his life were getting more and more random before falling asleep with the Xbox controller in his hands.

 

\---

 

The rest of the week was less eventful. Stiles was successfully re-inserted into the database. Things began rolling in to grade. The term lurched forward.

Derek stopped by on Thursday afternoon while Stiles was in his office.

“Do you have any trash for me?”  
“Yeah, about thirty plagiarized research proposals.”

Derek raised an eyebrow, leaning against the doorjamb.

“It’s an epidemic, Derek!  This is why I shouldn’t give examples to work from...they talked me into it this time and I guess I fell for it because I’m new. They just copied the example I wrote, and changed the subject of the sentences.” Stiles grimaced. “Some of them even left in the joke headers or the typos that _I_ made. There shouldn’t be any section in a formal document labeled ‘More Stuff Goes Here’.”

Derek laughed. “That sounds bad.”

“It’s a disaster of my own making. And I’m not reporting thirty fucking people to the dean of students for a code of conduct violation my third week on the job. So they’re just getting docked points and they can revise for a higher grade if they want. They’ll survive.”

Stiles took a breath. “That was more information than you really needed.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to it. I mean, I’m told you met Lita.”

“I have! Nice kid. She gave me some peanuts.”

“Yeah. Anyway, this is the good part of my day. There’s a limit to how badly office cleaning can go. Did you hear about the women’s bathroom in Sandow Hall this morning?”

“Oh no, the shit geyser?”

“Yeah...that was fun.”

“I’m _so_ sorry. I mean, I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I regret that you had to deal with that.”

“There’s a reason I keep a change of clothes here,” Derek shuddered. “Anyway, lemme grab your trash and then you can get back to your work.”

Derek came all the way in and grabbed the can from beside the desk, his arm brushing Stiles’s leg. Stiles tensed, then cursed himself mentally. Had it been so long since he got any that he was blushing over someone touching his leg? At work?

Derek dumped the trash and returned the can.  “At least it’s almost the weekend.”

“Yeah, you too!” Stiles replied. “Um. I mean. Yes, I agree, have a good weekend, I’ll just return to my work of extracting my foot from between my mandibles.”

“Bye, Stiles.”

 

\---

 

Saturday came, glorious, sunny, and free of forest fire smoke from any of the surrounding areas. The summer bugs had finally subsided by now, but it hadn’t actually gotten cold. Stiles slept in until a glorious 9:30 before getting dressed and facing the coffeemaker.

Stiles was expecting a package of questionable Korean snack foods from Amazon Grocery--he had ignored a knock at his door about an hour previous when he was still naked and sleepy. He opened his front door to check if it had arrived: not yet. But as he opened the door, he heard strains of guitar music coming from his neighbor’s porch. As he turned to see what Derek was up to (slash spy on him through the fence between their patios, perhaps) he planted his foot in exactly the wrong place.

Instead of a delivery of snacks, what had been left on his porch was a brochure advertising an informative lecture on the coming apocalypse and how salvation could be attained through Jesus and cryptocurrencies. A shiny, slippery brochure.

Stiles went down hard. As he stepped on the brochure, his right ankle twisted inward, hard, and his weight came down on his bent foot. _Snap._ He shouted and fell forward, landing on his right shoulder and rolling over onto the courtyard lawn.

“Everliving fuck,” he gasped, flat on his back. A tear escaped his squeezed-shut eyes. His right ankle hurt a tremendous amount.

“Stiles! What happened?” he heard as someone knelt down next to him.

“My body is the absolute worst and I hate it. Also, what the fuck did I slip on?” He opened his eyes to see Derek leaning over him, eyebrows drawn together with great concern.

Derek held up the brochure. “Is this it?”

“Papyrus? And a pixellated graphic of a lion? What is that, a bitcoin symbol? God fucking dammit, that brochure is figuratively AND literally killing me.”

Derek got closer. “Can I touch you? I’m a trained first-responder.”

Stiles gulped. And nodded.

Derek began moving his hands down Stiles’s right leg.  “How bad does it hurt? Can you move it?”

“Oh god,” Stiles squeezed out, trying to maintain composure. “I heard a snap and it hurts so bad…”

“Let’s get you up. Can you put weight on it? Come on. It’ll be okay.” Derek’s expression was concerned but his voice was calm and steady. His hand went to Stiles’s shoulder and the small of his back to help him sit up.

Stiles was up, but hyperventilating. “I...can’t. It...ah!” He panted, hiccuping quickly.

“Take a deep breath. Breathe with me.  In, that’s it, hold it...then let it out. We can sit here as long as you need. It’s a nice day. Take another breath.” Derek’s hands were still on him. They were so close. Stiles could smell sawdust and fabric softener on the other man--he tried to relax into the rhythm and not think about how embarrassed he was. He succeeded at the first part and failed at the second.

“I’m so embarrassed.” A stray hiccup escaped.

“Don’t be. I’m glad I was here. Crawling for help would be much worse.” Derek got to his feet. “Well, do you want to try wrapping and icing it here, or do you want me to get you inside first?”

“Hah. My place or yours?” Stiles gritted out.

Derek gave him a half-smile. “Well, my first-aid kit and my freezer are stocked. Have you even finished unpacking your moving boxes yet?”

“All the important ones,” Stiles said with a hint of defensiveness. “There are...some left.”

“My place it is.”

He held out a hand to Stiles.  Stiles took it and leveraged himself up onto his left leg.

“Okay, put your right arm over my shoulder.”

Stiles leaned his weight on Derek and hopped with his left leg.

“How are we going to get up the steps?”

Derek looked at the three steps up the porch. “Um. Well, there’s the fireman’s carry. I could carry you across the threshhold. Piggy back ride?”

“I could just scoot up them backwards on my butt. Might be a little less room for catastrophic error.” And less touching. A benefit and a drawback at the same time.

Now was Derek’s turn to blush. “Yeah, I guess that makes more sense. I’ll just...get the door.”

They managed to both get inside, and Derek closed the door behind them. “OK, why don’t you sit down on the couch and I’ll go get the ice.”  Derek helped him get settled in.

The living room was cozy, with tastefully mismatched furniture and handmade afghans on every surface. A guitar case sat open next to a recliner near the window. There was a battered and slightly charred-looking upright piano in the back corner of the room.

“Where’s Lita?” called Stiles to Derek in the other room.

“She’s at a sleepover--I’m supposed to go get her around 12.” He reappeared around the corner with a bandage, a soft ice pack, and a dish towel. “Here, put your foot up on some pillows. You should elevate it.”

Stiles complied. Derek wrapped the towel around the ice and gently pressed it down onto Stiles’s ankle.

“What’s the verdict, doc? Are they gonna have to amputate?”  
Derek laughed. “Ice it a little longer and then I’ll put the bandage on. If you can put a little weight on it it’s probably just sprained. It all basically depends how good your insurance is and if you want to spend four hours in the emergency room.”

“Oh boy. Man, this has been a shitty week.”

“Literally.”

Stiles threw his head back. “Oh no, I forgot about the geyser...I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Derek sat down in the recliner and picked up the guitar out of the case. “It’s sad but this is the most adult company I’ve had over here since Laura left for her externship. Though I’m sure you wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Hey, if you can’t handle me at my sprained ankle slash The Net slash plagiarism you don’t deserve me at my...radioactive spider slash The Matrix slash Beautiful Mind? I’m not sure where I was going with that, but. Well. Thanks, I guess. Thanks a lot.”

There was a pause in the conversation and they sat in silence for a moment.

“I saw you at karaoke the other night, but you disappeared too quick for me to come say hi.”

“Oh, yeah…” Derek dropped his head and turned the guitar over in his hands. “I get nervous seeing people from work sometimes. No big deal. I just went home. I liked your song, though.” He strummed a chord gently.

Stiles frowned. He hadn’t meant to chase Derek away from his usual haunt. “Thanks. Do you sing?”  
“Yeah, a little. I used to be in a band but it’s pretty recreational these days.”

“What were you going to sing that night?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“No! It’s totally okay to want to sing Taylor Swift. She speaks to me too.”

Now Derek laughed. “No, it’s not that, it’s just...it’s funny now.” He strummed a bit.

 

 _Some…_ he sang, drawing it out.

... _times in our lives_  
(Stiles broke into a grin. Okay, that was pretty funny.)  
_We all have pain_  
_We all have sorrow_  
_But if we are wise_  
_We know that there's always tomorrow._

Yeah, Stiles knew this one. He joined in on the chorus.

 _Lean on me, when you're not strong_  
_And I'll be your friend_  
_I'll help you carry on_  
_For it won't be long_  
_'Til I'm gonna need_  
_Somebody to lean on_

Derek had a rich tenor voice, just a little bit rough at the edges. His hand grasped the neck of the guitar and fingered chords with practiced ease. He was good.

 _Please swallow your pride_  
_If I have faith you need to borrow_  
_For no one can fill those of your needs_  
_That you won't let show_

Was it time to show off? Stiles chimed in with a harmony part.

 _You just call on me brother, when you need a hand_  
_We all need somebody to lean on_  
_I just might have a problem that you'll understand_  
_We all need somebody to lean on_

They made eye contact. Derek looked a little bashful but also relaxed and happy. Stiles forgot about his injury for the moment and relaxed into the song. Maybe this week wasn’t so bad after all.

 _Lean on me, when you're not strong_  
_And I'll be your friend_  
_I'll help you carry on_  
_For it won't be long_  
_'Til I'm gonna need_  
_Somebody to lean on_


End file.
